Best Animated Feature
, winner 2018.]] The Best Animated Feature Oscar is an Academy Award of Merit presented to the best overall motion picture of the year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). The Best Animated Feature category was officially included as an annual award for the first time for the 2001 film year (with the first winner being Shrek). Animated films can be nominated for other categories but have rarely been so: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010) are the only animated films ever to be nominated for Best Picture, while Waltz with Bashir (2008) is the only animated picture ever nominated for Best Foreign Language Film (though it failed to earn a nomination in the Best Animated Feature category). Eligibility and rules Until 2011, the award category had to be activated by the Awards Board each year, whereas now it is a standard category. The award is given only if there are at least eight animated feature films (with a theatrical release in Los Angeles). For the purposes of the award, only films over 40 minutes long are considered to be feature films. If there are 16 or more films submitted for the category, the winner is voted from a shortlist of five films (which has thus far happened only in 2002 and 2009, and will happen again in the upcoming 2011 ceremony), otherwise there will only be three films on the shortlist. Winners and nominees Computer-animated films have been the big winners in this category, with eight wins in the ten-year history of the award. The only exceptions were in 2002 and 2005, with winners Spirited Away, a traditionally animated anime film, and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, a stop-motion animation film. Both non-CG films were also not produced in the United States; Spirited Away came from Japan (it is also the only film not in the English language to win the award) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit came from Britain. Pixar Animation Studios has been the most successful organization in the history of Best Animated Feature. All eight feature films made by Pixar between 2001 and 2010 were nominated for the award and only two lost (Monsters Inc. lost to Shrek, and Cars lost to Happy Feet); Pixar's 2011 film, Cars 2 was the first to receive no nomination in the category. 2000s 2010s Special Awards Prior to the creation of the Best Animated Feature category in 2001, the Academy granted three special awards for achievements relating to feature-length animated films. In each case, the film that prompted the special recognition was either produced in part or distributed by the Walt Disney Company or one of its subsidiaries. The awards were as follows: ; 11th Academy Awards, 1938 : Special Award "To Walt Disney for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon." ; 61st Academy Awards, 1988 : Special Achievement Award "To Richard Williams for the animation direction of Who Framed Roger Rabbit." ; 68th Academy Awards, 1995 : Special Achievement Award "To John Lasseter, for his inspired leadership of the Pixar Toy Story team, resulting in the first feature-length computer-animated film." Category:Academy Awards by category